Christian influencer brags that she had six kids to "help the white race"
Sarah Elizabeth Tenney's viral videos expose how white Christian Nationalism turns children into props for racist ideology
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A Christian influencer is going viral for all the wrong reasons after posting videos featuring her children with captions celebrating how they’re all white.
Captions like “Had 6 kids in 7 years to help the white race from going extinct” and “Let’s bring back large white, Christian families!”
While those videos are more recent, “Lady Sarah Elizabeth” (a.k.a ladysarahelizabeth06 on Instagram and ladysarahelizabeth on TikTok) has been posting content like this for a while now, using her kids as social media props. None of this is a recent change in character. She’s represents the sort of right-wing, Elon Musk-pilled, Charlie Kirk-loving, Great Replacement Theory-accepting, anti-immigration racist Christian that’s taken hold in the Republican Party.
Which makes plenty of sense when you realize that she and her husband—a man who, in case you haven’t guessed, is also white—rallied for Donald Trump before the 2024 elections:
At the time, NBC News described the pre-rally prayer he delivered:
At a December rally in Coralville, Iowa, the Rev. Joel Tenney spoke ahead of Trump, telling the several hundred supporters gathered that he wanted to talk to them “as a pastor.”
“We have witnessed a sitting president weaponize the entire legal system to try and steal an election and imprison his leading opponent, Donald Trump, despite committing no crime,” he said.
“We must re-elect President Trump for the third time,” Tenney said, echoing Trump’s “big lie” rhetoric. He then said that the upcoming election “is part of a spiritual battle” with “demonic forces at play.”
His voice trembling at times like a tent revival preacher behind a Trump-emblazoned podium, he continued: “When Donald Trump becomes the 47th President of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”
(Joel Tenney runs a solo ministry, Alpha Pneuma Ministries.)
But back to his racist wife, Sarah Elizabeth Tenney.
Besides the I-hate-birth-control Christian fundamentalism of it all, she’s gone all in on the idea that what the world needs right now is more white people to undo the damage of non-white people and (gasp) mixed-race families. After all, she says, white people deserve credit for “bringing us all into modernity, and inventing, all modern technology.” (Punctuation unchanged.)
According to a website dedicated to covering extremism:
Tenney frequently frames having a large white family as both a religious calling and a racial imperative. In March, Tenney posted a video of her and her husband overlaid with the words “POV: You know your race is a minority race and need to bring it back to its former glory so you have six kids.” Another post from February featured a video of her family overlaid with the words “Christians let’s start trusting God and grow our families. The Muslim and other religions are having large families and openly say they are going to out breed us. God’s 1st commandment, ‘be fruitful and multiply.’”
… Among the many influencers posting this racist content, Sarah is the most popular and has the most powerful connections.
This is why, whenever we talk about the scourge of Christian Nationalism, it’s important to stress how this is white Christian Nationalism. There’s a hell of a lot of overlap between the people who believe we ought to live in a country ruled by their religious beliefs and those who think white people are superior to everyone else. They go to church. They work for this Republican administration. They are welcome in both spaces. And the people who are in their orbit, even if they’re not outwardly racist in the same way, are just as guilty of perpetuating this ideology.
In Tenney’s case, she just creates straw men, left and right, to justify her bigotry.
She claims people want her to have abortions (they don’t), or that they’re offended by her kids (why?), or that everyone believes she’s promiscuous (no one would care). She’s one of those people who believes everyone else’s world revolves entirely around her existence, and she responds by pretending to be a voice of reason when what she’s actually doing is proving her own inferiority.
Also, if you’re constantly bragging that the only reason you have children is to perpetuate your race, you’re telling on yourself. As if every child is conceived purely out of spite—to stick it to some imaginary internet strangers.
Speaking of which, kudos to this internet stranger:
The conservative racism of the Iowa-based, Armenia-living couple has real-life implications, too. This isn’t just online rhetoric. What Stephen Miller says on behalf of Trump is no different from the hate speech spewed by these people. But this is what passes as inspirational content in certain conservative Christian circles. Some of them use phrases like “family values,” “demographic change,” or “protecting Western civilization.” The Tenneys don’t even bother with euphemisms because they know their audience. Why hide the white supremacy when you can just toss in a few Bible verses and know your viewers will assume you’re holy?
This also isn’t anything new. Christianity has always been used to justify slavery and segregation. Yes, there have always been Christians who oppose those things, but you can’t deny the role religion played in propping up the idea of a God-ordained racial hierarchy. That’s why white Christian Nationalism remains such a dangerous force in American politics. It’s not just about putting prayer in schools or posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. These people want to define what America looks like, theologically and literally. It’s how they can convince their base that every election represents an existential threat to their way of life because everyone who doesn’t look or think like them—a Muslim mayor, a Democratic Socialist congresswoman, a Jewish city council member—must be an enemy. Which is why you need to breed an army of white Christian soldiers… who can be used to boost your social media pages until they’re old enough to enlist.
The saddest thing here may be that their kids are now wrapped up in their parents’ overt racism. They’ll grow up knowing they were never the product of love but an extension of their parents’ hatred. It’s the least “pro-life” argument you can imagine.
If this is what passes for family values in certain corners of the right, then more conservative Christians should speak out against it or it’s safe to assume they’re fine with it.
Those kids look miserable.
Dad is a pastor. His daughters need to beware.